Don’t get caught playing the fool!

Freshman Lizzy Ratliff plays a trick on sophomore David Dera by placing a "Kick Me" sign on his back without him knowing. (Photo: Meigs)

Everyone knows that April 1 is a day to watch out for pranksters and troublemakers who can not wait to pull a joke over on the poor, unsuspecting victims of their choice. It gives these evil geniuses a chance to show just how skilled they are in the art of tom foolery.

The origin of April Fool’s Day is a mystery that historians have not been able to solve.

Some say it originated in France when they changed the calendar to match the Roman calendar so the year would begin in January instead of early April. Not everyone had heard about this change, so the people still celebrating the New Year in April were called “April Fools”

This, of course, is only one of the many theories out there.

April Fool’s Day is celebrated in a variety of ways around the world.

For instance, in England all the jokes are played in the morning because it is considered bad luck to play a joke on someone in the afternoon. The person playing the joke is called a “gob” or “gobby,” and the victim is called a “noodle.”

Some of the classic American April Fool’s Day pranks are ones like putting shaving cream on someone’s face while they are sleeping or putting a sleeping person’s hand in a warm bucket of water to make them think they are going to the bathroom, so they eventually go to the bathroom on themselves.

Lecanto High School has a few gobs of its own such as sophomore Cheyenne Shilling.

“Last year, I pranked my little brother Blade by taking the shower head [off] and putting red food dye in it,” Shilling said. “20 minutes later, all I could hear was girly screaming coming from the bathroom, and he stormed out looking like a ripe tomato.”

LHS sophomore Breanna Johnson has been at the receiving end of these jokes before and it has not been very pleasant, to say the least.

“When I got pranked I felt like, well, a fool,” Johnson joked. “It was pretty embarrassing, but I laughed it off.”